Israel Trying to Calm Alarm over Aliyah to the Territories

Israel has launched an information campaign aimed at calming growing international concern over the possibility that thousands of Soviet immigrants may be settled in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The initiative was launched after Israel received strongly worded warnings Monday from both Washington and Moscow about settling the Soviet newcomers in the administered territories.

They were reacting, in part, to recent remarks by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, which were widely perceived in the Arab world as an attempt to use increased emigration from the Soviet Union to justify dispossessing Palestinians in the territories.

In Washington, the State Department warned that “putting even more settlers in the territories is an obstacle to the cause of peace.”

In Moscow, Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Yuli Vorontsov warned that Israel’s settlement policy could jeopardize the flow of immigrants from the Soviet Union.

And on Tuesday, Grigory Olhovikov, head of a Soviet economic delegation currently visiting Israel, said that Moscow would appreciate assurances that the Soviet immigrants would not be settled in the territories.

The Foreign Ministry here issued a statement Tuesday expressing regret over “the style and content” of Vorontsov’s statement. It also pointed out that less than 1 percent of the 29,000 olim who arrived last year settled in the territories.

SHAMIR DISMISSES ‘ARTIFICIAL STORM’

Shamir, meanwhile, dismissed the furor over the issue as an “artificial storm” that would quickly pass.

At a meeting Tuesday with Simcha Dinitz, chairman of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency Executives, the prime minister said he stood by his words that “a large, strong state” is needed to absorb massive aliyah.

But he said he does not mean that immigrants should be channeled to the administered territories. Immigrants will be free to settle wherever they want, he said.

Dinitz told Israel Radio later that everything must be done to “diminish the tension.”

He stressed that the Jewish Agency does not forward funds raised by world Jewry for immigrant absorption beyond the Green Line, the boundary separating Israel from the territories.

Dinitz declined to discuss his differences with the prime minister. But the Knesset was deluged with no-confidence motions Tuesday from all parts of the political spectrum.

The left accused Shamir of jeopardizing aliyah. The right wing charged he is not absorbing the immigrants vigorously enough. Debate on the matter has been set for Feb. 12.

The American and Soviet reactions to Shamir’s remarks followed weeks of lobbying by the Arab states. And more pressure can be expected.

The Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee was discussing the situation during a special session in Tunis on Tuesday.

PLO leader Yasir Arafat told the Saudi newspaper Al-Yawm that he had asked “Arab elements” to apply pressure in Europe and at the United Nations to curb the exodus of Jews from the Soviet Union and the rest of Eastern Europe.